Did the Golden Age Superman's adventures also happen to the Modern Age Superman?

[Buried Alien]

The early adventures of the Golden Age Superman (i.e. ACTION COMICS # 1 and SUPERMAN # 1) were experienced by Kal-L of Earth-Two, but did today's Modern Age Superman (Post-COIE and Post-INFINITE CRISIS) have adventures that corresponded to those of the Golden Age Superman (including that iconic image of Superman lifting that green getaway car and smashing it against a hillside)?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[J. Robb]

There are occasional references to Golden Age stories. The 1992 story "Crisis At Hand" about domestic abuse has a flashback to Superman dealing with the wife-beater in Action Comics #1. So unless there's some huge contradiction, I don't think there's any reason to assume the old stories didn't happen to the modern Superman.

[chriskenny]

I think it's cool that Matt Wagner is going back to those Golden Age Batman stories and placing them in the Modern Age. I bought Batman Chronicles and could never understand why someone like The Monk wasn't a mainstay of Batman's rogues gallery; it was nice to see a creator acknowledge and pay their respects to those stories. I think it would be pretty cool if he did something similar to Superman, as well.

[Lorendiac]

I think it's cool that Matt Wagner is going back to those Golden Age Batman stories and placing them in the Modern Age. I bought Batman Chronicles and could never understand why someone like The Monk wasn't a mainstay of Batman's rogues gallery; it was nice to see a creator acknowledge and pay their respects to those stories. I think it would be pretty cool if he did something similar to Superman, as well.

One question: Did you know that Earth-1 versions of The Monk and Dala tangled with Batman (and actually transformed him into a vampire) in a story arc in 1982? I remember because I had just started buying Batman and Detective Comics around that time. (Then they were captured and strapped onto stretchers and taken off into comic book limbo, never to be heard from again until Matt Wagner decided to dust off the original character concepts.)

[PatrickG]

Batman has never had a "hard reboot" in almost 70 years.

Superman has had several.

BUT... If the Barry Allen races and JLA adventures from the Silver Age can remain in continuity (with a tweak or two) as they (mostly) have as well as some Bronze Age stuff like Blackrock, I'd like to think that much of Siegel and Shuster's stories were still experienced by the modern Superman in some form.

Even now, Joe Kelly is revamping Superman and Batman's pre-Crisis "first meeting" aboard a cruise ship for modern continuity.

The powers would necessitate some changes but I've been a big fan of a "Year One" Superman series for years now. Work in the original Puzzler and Jail Master. Work in the Archer. Work in Hocus and Pocus. Work in the Powerstone. Maybe even the mountain citadel.

A lot of this stuff would work with a similar approach that's taken to Batman's Golden-Age and early Silver-Age adventures. If Paul Sloane Two-Face and the giant dinosaur in the Batcave can be in continuity, I'm all for somebody like Darwyn Cooke revisiting Superman's early years "in continuity".

As a series, it might get old. But as a stylized prestige project or a SUPERMAN: CLASSIFIED arc, it could be a viable miniseries and set some cool ideas in motion that could be adopted by the monthly books.

Cooke is already doing one with Tim Sale about Kryptonite in SUPERMAN: CLASSIFIED.

But I think the old stuff could make excellent springboards for arcs in that book. Revisit characters that haven't shown up in 20+ years in a context close to how they were introduced and then take the ones that work for use in the monthlies.

[Lorendiac]

There are occasional references to Golden Age stories. The 1992 story "Crisis At Hand" about domestic abuse has a flashback to Superman dealing with the wife-beater in Action Comics #1. So unless there's some huge contradiction, I don't think there's any reason to assume the old stories didn't happen to the modern Superman.

I somehow had the impression that it was supposed to work the other way around in the Post-Crisis era: All previously published Superman appearances, Golden Age, Silver Age, whatever, had "definitely not happened" to the modern Clark Kent -- unless, perhaps, one of them was specifically referenced as still being part of his history in a published Post-Crisis story; a situation which almost never came up?

I seem to have read somewhere, maybe even in an old Batman letter column somewhere, that the above statement was also supposed to apply to Post-Crisis Batman even though he hadn't gotten the Total Reboot treatment the way Superman did. The idea seemed to be that if, for example, a Joker story from the 1970s got explicitly mentioned in a story in the late 80s or early 90s, this would "confirm" that the 70s story was still "in continuity." If it didn't get explicitly mentioned, then it was floating around in limbo, its continuity status unknown (but probably "never happened") unless and until it did get mentioned!

Don't shoot me! I'm not claiming that the policy I just described is brilliantly logical and user-friendly; I'm just saying that somewhere I ran across one or more references to the idea that this was, in fact, supposed to be the Post-Crisis policy for awhile! (In Batman's case, even if it really was the initial policy, I suspect it was largely forgotten after awhile.) ;)

Of course, there's no guarantee that every single writer and every single editor were on the exact same page regarding such policies and "default assumptions" in the years following COIE.

[Buried Alien]

Even now, Joe Kelly is revamping Superman and Batman's pre-Crisis "first meeting" aboard a cruise ship for modern continuity.


Hmmm. Does that mean that after Kelly's rendition is published, the MAN OF STEEL version of Superman and Batman's first meeting (with Batman threatening to blow up "an innocent" - himself - if he didn't gain Superman's cooperation in tracking down the villain known as Magpie) will be decanonized?


Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[PatrickG]

Nah.

My understanding is that Kelly isn't telling it as their "first meeting" but simply as the story of how they learned eachother's identities.

Which decanonizes Byrne's Adventures of Superman #440. But only by half. That story had Batman learn Superman's identity but we saw there that Superman already KNEW Batman's identity... and HOW he knew has never been explained.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The early Seigel & Shuster Superman stories might be a little too political for DC to include all of them in the modern incarnation. I mean, the original Supes tore down slums in order to force the government to rebuild new ones. He was all about crooked politicians and social injustice. That doesn't really jibe with the Defender of the Status-Quo he's since become.

Unfortunately, Superman's status as a corporate icon prevents him from ever taking a strong political stand on anything for fear of alienating somebody.